


The Way We All Run

by pragma (CarlileLovesAnime)



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, Gen, Infection, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarlileLovesAnime/pseuds/pragma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Together, six young adults embark on a harrowing coast-to-coast journey. </p>
<p>Through infected territory. </p>
<p>Whether they like each other or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. kate

**Author's Note:**

> Projected updates: six chapters per week. 
> 
> **IMPORTANT: These chapters are posted _out of_ chronological order. If you prefer to enjoy the story in this form, or to try to determine the true order of events by yourself, you are certainly more than welcome to do that. If not, [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JRVRxFHiA5_WQsZRosJUCHaDfVJf9TuDmQqo7DX3yk0/edit?usp=sharing) is a public Google Doc spreadsheet that lists the official chronological orders of every chapter (with links).**

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But I am afraid my last stop is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out chapter two for more notes n such

Dearest friends,

I cannot thank you enough for your support. You sacrificed so much to keep me healthy and safe, and for that I have so much more faith. I am sure that with your strength and passion, combined with the Lord’s guidance, all of you will reach New York, and beyond.

But I am afraid my last stop is here. I can’t go on with you any longer.

Please understand why I am doing this. Increasingly, I have become a burden to you; because of that, and the uncertainty whether my body will ever recover from this affliction, I have realized that my leaving you as soon as possible is for the best.

(I’m sorry if my handwriting is hard to read.)

Nathan and Victoria, I am sorry I had not taken the time to get to know either of you before now. But I like to think God has a fortuitous way of timing things. You came into my life at the right moment to offer me perspective, give me acceptance, and show me grace. I will remember you for that. Take care of yourselves.

Chloe and Rachel, you are awe-inspiring pillars of resilience and loyalty, and you made me feel so effortlessly like part of a family. I know you have been through more than your fair shares of hardship, so I appreciate that you opened your hearts to me. Know that your futures hold so much greatness.

Max, you have boundless compassion and conviction. I admire you so much. You have done more for me than anyone in my life in the recent past. I don’t want you to think that your time and effort were wasted. On the contrary, it is because of you that I have the courage to make this choice. I will live on in a different way, maybe, hopefully, even closer to God, and I know you will as well. This is not your fault; it was a long time coming. Thank you for filling me with hope.

All of you, please keep going. Do not worry about me. I love you very much.

May the Lord bless and keep you always.

Kate Marsh


	2. victoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost immediately, he rises to his feet, cups his hands around his mouth, and aims his voice at the surrounding mason walls for maximum echo: “Get us the hell out of here!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i decided to post more than one chapter today, but not all six of this week's chapters at once ^^; 
> 
> anyway hi my name is carlile (pragmafics @ tumblr) and i am not over life is strange, no. i also love aus. so why not combine the two amirite? this fic has been a fucking blast to write and such a great way to cope with the ending of season one. 
> 
> also GIANT thank you to my buddies ivy (starflowermagic @ tumblr) and caleb for proofreading and putting up with me during the creative process. and to you for reading. hugs and kisses to y'all C:

There’s one ineffectual white wisp of a cloud in the distance, so small, and they’re so high up, that Victoria swears she could lift a hand and whisk it out of existence if she could, and then the sky would be pristine.

She reaches out – and casually drops her arm back down. “That new guy, Mark,” she says, “Is really interesting.”

“Yeah, how is your housemates’ guest?” Nathan asks, and begins to move his legs alternatingly.

“He told us he’s just passing through.”

No one _just passes through_ Arcadia. Some people used to, years ago.

“He’s a ‘professional traveler.’ Like, what does that even mean?” She scoffs. “How he even got in here is a mystery to me.”

Nathan leans back, crosses his arms, and makes a sputtering noise. “Next he’ll try to gift you an exotic monkey’s paw from Marrakech, or some bullshit like that.”

“Maybe that’s what he bribed the guards with,” she suggests, and they laugh a little.

He sighs. “Today’s a good day, though.” His watch goes off; he quickly stops it. The two of them sit in the following silence for a few minutes, him bouncing and swinging and kicking his legs, her forcing deep breaths of thin air. Neither of them has been far outside the settlement for a long time, and with a view like this, from their spot on her house’s parapet, it’s hard to remember why. The mountain peaks stab into the bright blue expanse of sky. Green blotches of vegetation spread leisurely over the landscape. The far-off abandoned city structures tempt them with their inner artifacts of a dead time.

She asks if she can ask a question.

“Shoot,” he replies.

“What was your old house like?”

He presses his lips together and then separates them. “Huge,” he says. He clicks his tongue. “Too huge. My parents liked to leave the curtains open, but it still felt dark inside most of the time, even with all the natural light, because there was just so much unnecessary space.”

She remembers that he’s from somewhere in New England – Connecticut? She doesn’t know. She’s never been east of Texas.

“My bedroom was on the third floor. It was real nice. I had my own bathroom and a walk-in closet and a game room.”

“Jealous.”

“No one ever went up there except for me, unless I asked them to come,” he adds.

“Oh,” she says wistfully, “Privacy.”

His shoulders go back and voice becomes deep and gravelly, and he holds his finger between his lips and nose like it’s a mustache. “Privacy? What the hell is that?”

She laughs, and he relaxes.

“It’s weird,” he continues. “I lived there all my life till I came here, but I don’t really miss it.”

“Must have not felt like a home, then,” she says.

He sighs. “Yeah, fuck that place, actually.” He steadies his legs, hunches forward, and props his elbows on his kneecaps.

“Yeah, fuck that place!” She scrunches her face in disgust.

He takes his eyes off the distant mountains and brings them to her. “Fuck this place, too. Fuck every place.”

“We’re building a rocket and flying it into oblivion,” she declares.

“Leave Earth,” he says under his breath. She turns to meet his gaze. Almost immediately, he rises to his feet, cups his hands around his mouth, and aims his voice at the surrounding mason walls for maximum echo: “Get us the hell out of here!”

The din from the pedestrians and strangers below changes a bit. “If you don’t like it, then leave,” retorts an old man. “You ought to be grateful,” exclaims a woman.

“Fuck off,” Nathan mumbles, kicking the balustrade. He plops down where he sat next to her beforehand, muscles tensed to stillness.


	3. rachel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe presses her lips tightly together. “I’ll live,” she says. She sucks in another breath of poison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter for today i guess 
> 
> i also wanted to give shoutouts to my irl friends austin, lore, and sareena, and to tumblr users sirtrevelyan and rainbowblue13. y'all are fantabulous.

Chloe lays her elbow on the arm of the bench. “Never thought I’d be so relieved to sit down.”

“Or have a smoke.” Rachel straightens her legs, takes a drag, and anchors her free hand palm-down behind her for balance.

Chloe nods and says, almost laughing, “Yeah, really.” The wind comes from behind them and steals the smoke quickly away from the ends of their cigarettes.

Rachel hesitates – she shifts her weight onto her haunches, passes her Camel Menthol into her other hand, and touches Chloe’s shoulder gently. Chloe draws a sharp breath. It occurs to them both that it’s been too long since they had a casual moment together.

“Are you—” They meet eyes – their faces are so very close, they can smell each other through the tobacco stench. “—I mean—” Rachel lowers the hand on Chloe’s back. “—How are you holding up? I don’t think I’ve asked that.”

Chloe presses her lips tightly together. “I’ll live,” she says. She sucks in another breath of poison. “I know you’ve been kind of—”

“Yeah,” Rachel says dismissively.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe acquiesces.

Rachel shakes her head. “No, I should be saying sorry.”

Chloe frowns. “It was an _accident_ , Rach. As if you could have done anything.” She hunches her shoulders; Rachel responds by dropping her hand away.

“Even so, if it weren’t for me making a stupid decision, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Yeah,” Chloe admits, “That is true. I guess if anyone can be blamed it’s you. But it’s shitty to say that. Not to mention unproductive.”

“It’s what I’ve been thinking all this time,” Rachel says.

“Well.” Chloe faces forward to take a draw. “Then.” The smoke flies from her mouth.

Rachel leans the littlest bit away, turns, puts her cigarette between her lips, and inhales.

“That’s something I do a lot, I’ve come to notice,” Chloe starts, “Dwell on the past.” She inhales again and when she lowers the cigarette back down her hands tremble. Rachel looks at her. “It’s like, at the end of the day, eighty percent of what I feel boils down to guilt or bitterness. And all this constant vigilance and long-distance walking we’ve had to do is so different from that because it’s all right here, you know, it keeps my head in the present.” She almost takes another drag. “I didn’t – I couldn’t comprehend how much all that bullshit had been weighing me down before.”

Rachel stares at her for a few seconds, in thought, and then as if on cue, the sun emerges from an overhead cloud and seems to beam directly down on Chloe, setting her silhouette aglow, and Rachel understands. She feels warm all of a sudden. She begins to gnaw on her own lip.

“Why am I like that, I wonder,” Chloe asks herself. She smokes the rest of her cigarette in silence.

Rachel doesn’t have the stomach anymore to finish her cigarette, so she drops it to the wet dirt and stubs it back and forth and back and forth until its innards are spilled out everywhere, the casing completely flattened, the filter oozed out.

“I love you more than I can say, you know,” Chloe says.

Rachel looks to her again. Chloe lifts up her legs, lets them fall, breathes deeply, sighs, and holds her forehead in her palm.

“I love you, too,” Rachel says.

She doesn’t quite know how to describe the way she feels having spoken those words, except it’s similar to yanking an infected tooth out of your mouth, if that makes sense.

“I was a possessive twat,” Chloe admits.

Rachel shakes her head, declares, “I use people,” leans over, and plants a kiss on the corner of Chloe’s mouth. “We’ll become better people, together.” She presses her cheek to Chloe’s, and Chloe bends her arm up to bury her fingers in Rachel’s hair.


	4. max

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If there are no mental health professionals in town, how can people tell the difference between someone who’s mentally ill and someone who’s infected?” 
> 
> “They don’t,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello yes i am back 
> 
> today has been yet another eventful day in this hellish week but thankfully when tuesday (11/17) afternoon rolls around i will be able to keel over and die like i like to 
> 
> anyway i rewrote this chapter at the last minute and my buddy caleb read over it to make sure it wasn't pure, steaming horse manure so thanks dude

She finds Warren at the feed store, using his string bean arms to lug sacks of grain pellets from the door to a wagon. He notices her – stumbles –; she helps him support the bag before he drops it to the ground.

“How is it that you always know just when to arrive?” he says. His arms now free, he rubs the back of his head.

Max shrugs. “Luck?” But he’s one to talk. “I was going to call you first but no cell signal.” She shakes her head. “I need to ask you something.”

He parts his arms and bows as if to tell her to proceed.

“Is there—” She pauses and reads the sky for the right way to phrase this. “Before we all head out, is there a counselor or someone like that who we can just catch up with?” Right away she adds, “I’m asking for a friend.”

“No.” He takes one step in the direction of the store building, and another, and she follows suit and now the two of them are walking. “The people here think that seeking counseling is for the weak, or whatever, so no one can get it.” He thrusts his arms forward. “It’s like, damn, I’ve got a few small-government, conservative-type opinions too, but I don’t wanna make it so people can’t get what they need. Jeez.”

“That is messed up,” she says.

He nods solemnly. “Don’t get me started. I’m just glad we only ever visit Sun Valley. We would go to a SafeZoneTM, but the closest one is a long ways away. We don’t need to go down there that badly.”

“But then…” She drops her eyes to the ground – pale soil compacted by probably thousands of human and animal footsteps. Tiny weeds dare to sprout at the edges of the path. “If there are no mental health professionals in town—”

“None,” he confirms.

“—How can people tell the difference between someone who’s mentally ill and someone who’s infected?”

He turns to her with a grave look on his face: his lips thinned, eyes sagging. He stops walking. She stops, too, and meets his eyes.

“They don’t,” he says. He sees her grit her teeth. “Anyone who shows signs of neuroatypicality just gets run out of town, period.” He pretends to wield something like a pitchfork and makes a jabbing motion at the air. “I’ve seen it happen.”

They resume, making their way past the doorframe into the store. The manager, a man with a bushy mustache and baggy clothes, stares them down. Max can feel his eyes on her. The back of her neck tenses up.

“We’ll be out of here soon enough,” he assures her. He kneels down and hugs a bag of chicken feed. She asks if he needs help. He says he’s fine, tightens his grip on the sack, grunts, and straightens his knees.

“If you could grab a container of mealworms.” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but she understands anyway. She glances at the manager, who shows her where to go with a subtle tilt and flick of the head. Warren shuffles outside. Max carries the plastic bin of variously aged mealworms to the wagon as efficiently as she can without looking at them.

When she plops the box on top of one of the feedbags, he smiles. “Thank you,” he says, “On behalf of the chickens.”

“Well, it would be unfair to make just you work ‘round-the-cluck.” She takes a dramatic bow.

He groan-chuckles. “How do you have friends?”

“I don’t,” she answers half-sarcastically.

They laugh as they head back toward the building.

“That reminds me,” he says, “I meant to ask you something, and since you’re right here.”

He crosses his arms, uncrosses them, puts his hands in his pockets, removes them. The manager resumes his watch over the two of them. Max feels her own heartbeat rabbit up a little in her chest.

“What are you doing after you get to New York?” Warren asks.

She stops walking.

“I know you said you move around a lot,” he disclaims. He stops too. There goes his hand to his neck again. “But I just thought it would be nice for us to keep in touch.”

She lowers her head, grinds her teeth side-to-side, and judges his expression.

His hands fly up. “I don’t mean that in a romantic way or anything. I know I’m not your type. I get it. You don’t have to tell me more than once.” She relaxes visibly, and so he drops his arms back down to his sides. “I want to be friends with you, Max.” He forces a smile. “Max Overdrive. Max Power. Mad Max.” He chuckles.

“I’d like that,” she says, and she grazes the sole of her shoe over the dirt floor.

He grins, genuinely this time. “Good!” –He realizes he says this a little loudly, and forces himself to calm down. “Yeah, I mean, I know we’ve only known each other for – what, a week? Probably less than that. Honestly I can’t keep track of time to save my life.” (She nods, partly in understanding, but mostly to convey relation.) “But yeah. You’re really interesting. You’re so cool and mysterious. I haven’t met many people like you.”

She laughs so obnoxiously that even she herself is caught off guard.

“Cool, I don’t think so,” she says; “Mysterious, depends on how well you know me.”

He raises his eyebrows. “What if I wanted to become one of those friends who doesn’t think you’re a mystery anymore?”

And when he says that Max feels the dimensions of space and time in the store just plummet to absolute zero, and get stuck there in the span of a second or two or maybe ten. The stillness coils into her chest like a ghostly hand. A chill creeps over her. She feels pain somewhere but can’t figure out exactly where.

The steeled eyes of the manager concentrate on her like a laser beam. She pushes the words out of her mouth.

“You would be the first.” 


	5. chloe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She holds out the ticket; it’s already been punched, the watermark glinting in the little sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, here's this

The passenger is a petite young woman with sunken eyes, hair pulled up, and an oversized sweatshirt. She holds out the ticket; it’s already been punched, the watermark glinting in the little sunlight. Chloe grabs the ticket unceremoniously, – takes a second glance at the girl’s face, scowls at the ticket, and peeks up over the top edge.

“You’re not Max.”

The girl freezes and goes pale. She does not even attempt to protest.

Chloe flips the ticket around so the passenger can see the front, and points to where the name Caulfield, Maxine evidences itself in black ink. Her nails are warped and unpainted and of inconsistent length from years of habitual biting.

“She gave it to me,” says the girl. “She told me I could have it. I have…” She roots around in her black leather messenger bag, and extracts a folded paper and a SafeZoneTM ID card. “…Express written permission from Max to use her ticket.”

Chloe replies, “Gimme it,” and snatches them.

First she holds up the card to compare the file photo to the girl’s face. Marsh, Kate B, it reads. She looks a little younger in the photograph, but the two are clearly one and the same. The girl lays her French-manicured hand on her sternum. “I’m Kate,” she says.

“I gathered.” Chloe opens up the letter, skims it, and rereads it more slowly. She sighs. “Sure enough.”

Kate takes a tiny step back.

Chloe folds the note in half (not along the preexisting creases); shoves it, the ticket and the ID at her; and without another word, runs with purpose out of the lot.


	6. nathan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan appears from round the corner, zipping up his fly. “And FYI, I can’t get infected.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last one this week 
> 
> i must warn y'all ahead of time that SOMEBODY uses some pretty hurtful sexist/homophobic slang in this chapter. it's brief. it happens at the end of the paragraph that starts with nathan saying "I can hear you both" 
> 
> anyway thank y'all for reading ヾ(´▽｀;)ゝ see you again soon!

“This stop is hella sketchy.” Chloe holds herself at the elbows as if she’s cold. “You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

Rachel pivots toward her. “Hey, it’s better than potentially running out of fuel on an abandoned highway in the middle of BFS, Oregon.” Chloe half-shrugs. Rachel pockets her fleet card, presses the diesel button, and brings the fuel nozzles to the tanks one at a time.

The rig door is thrust open. The women look to the movement and see Nathan hopping out. He glares at them both as he stalks out from under the canopy. “What?”

“Restroom door’s locked,” Chloe says, “If that’s where you’re headed.” She puts her hand on her hip.

He stops. “Aw, damn, and I was really hoping I could drown you in a toilet.” He continues walking, facing away from them. “I’m just stretching my legs. I’m gonna piss around the corner or something.” There is a stark line between dark of night and dim fluorescence of the overhead lights, turning him into an uncolored figure the instant he steps outside the canopy area.

Instinctively, Chloe lowers her akimbo-hand to her gun holster.

“The sweep was clean, right?” Rachel asks her in a hushed voice.

Chloe nods but her expression remains tense. She catches a glimpse of Kate and Max’s tired, pale faces inside the tractor.

“Maybe he’ll wander too far, get lost, and come down with The Germs,” Rachel whispers.

Chloe smirks. “I’m so sorry, Miss Prescott,” she says at the same low level of volume, eyebrows lifted, “But I’m afraid that due to circumstances out of our control, your brother didn’t make it to his destination.” She and Rachel giggle.

“I can hear you both,” Nathan calls. Quietly, but still audibly, he adds, “Dyke bitches.”

Chloe rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and steps up to the open door to help Max, Kate, and Victoria out of the rig.

“You know you need to be careful anyway, dude,” Rachel says. “The bacteria reader isn’t a hundred percent accurate.” He doesn’t have a facemask on.

There is a beat of silence.

“If you gotta go, you just gotta do it the old-fashioned way – pop a squat in the grass,” Chloe instructs the others.

“Lovely,” Victoria says sarcastically, and she crosses her arms and saunters off, far enough away so no one can see the details but close enough for everyone to keep track of where she is. Sleepy Kate squints in confusion; Max leads her to the gas station door, finds that it’s locked shut, and snoops around a bit trying to find a way inside. Chloe disappears on the opposite side of the truck.

Nathan appears from round the corner, zipping up his fly. “And FYI, I can’t get infected.”

“Yeah, right,” Rachel replies.

He squares his shoulders and anchors his feet. “I’m immune.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“No way, man,” Rachel says. “There’s no way you’re an immune. You need to check your special snowflake complex.”

“You’re infected?” yells Chloe.

Nathan frowns. “Not infected, _immune_.”

Chloe corrects him: “Immune just means you’re infected but you don’t show symptoms.”

“How long ago did you get infected?” Rachel asks.

“Over ten years ago,” he claims.

“You’ve been infected for ten years and you can still talk coherently.” Rachel nods. “Impressive faking ability, as expected of you.”

“It’s not fake.”

“So, if you contract MED,” Max (who is finagling something by the station door) chimes in, “It won’t do anything to you?”

“Because I already have it. I’m already infected. I can’t get more infected than I already am. Infected is infected.”

“How, even?” Rachel asks.

Nathan spreads and raises his arms.

“I think, when I was in training, I learned about why that happens, but I can’t remember,” Chloe says.

“See?” Nathan gestures in the direction of the big rig. “Your girlfriend believes me.”

“I actually don’t,” Chloe objects.

“But it is possible,” Max says unconfidently.

He lifts his chin. “Of course it is! Living proof, right here in front of you. Hello.”

There is a loud _chink_ , and then Max makes a triumphant noise. Rachel whistles impressedly. Max pulls open the door. “After you,” she says. Kate thanks her and shuffles past, and Max follows her into the pitch-dark abandoned building, leaving the door wide open.

Chloe runs over. “How in the _hell_?”

“Max is scarier than this fuel station,” says Rachel with a laugh. The pump switches off. She replaces the nozzles on their hangers, and then reels out the diesel exhaust fluid hose.

Victoria returns. “Does anyone have hand sanitizer?” she asks.

Rachel lowers one eyebrow and raises another, and holds herself back from smiling.

“Not Nathan, for sure,” Chloe says. “He’s immune.”

Victoria gives Nathan a half-sympathetic tilt of the head.

“Can we just get back on the road?” Bitterly, Nathan walks up to the rig, and he and Victoria climb into the back of it.

They sit. She rubs her knuckles on his upper back in a few tiny circles. “They don’t know shit, Nathan.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” he gripes. He pulls the blanket out from under the two of them and aggressively balls it up at their feet. “It’s not like it ever mattered, right?”

She takes her hand off of him, silent.

A moment later, Kate clambers inside, seats herself, and fishes in her bag for a tiny plastic bottle.

“Anybody need Germ-X?” she asks.

“ _S’il vous plaît_ ,” says Victoria, thrusting out an open palm.

Kate gives a squirt to her and to Nathan, too, before dumping a copious amount on her own hand.


End file.
